Milkipur bypoll: Akhilesh claims cops checking voters' IDs, seeks EC intervention

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday claimed that police personnel were checking voters' IDs in Milkipur constituency, where polling is underway for the assembly by-election, to "create fear" among them and urged the Election Commission to immediately remove them.

In a post on X, Yadav shared a picture of a police officer checking the ID card of a person outside a polling booth.

Ayodhya Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Raj Karan Nayyar denied the allegations and said the person whose ID card is being checked in the said picture is a polling agent.

Milkipur falls under Ayodhya district.

"The Election Commission should immediately take cognisance of the pictures related to this news that Ayodhya police is checking the ID cards of voters in Milkipur, in which senior police officers are also involved," Yadav said in his post in Hindi.

"This is a democratic crime of indirectly influencing voting by creating fear among voters. Such people should be removed immediately and punitive action should be taken," he said.

Talking to reporters, Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad alleged that the BJP wanted to win the bypoll by creating pressure on officers to influence and threaten voters.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited Milkipur 10 times over the past few months and deployed 16 ministers but failed to influence voters who support the SP, he said.

Refuting the SP's allegations, SSP Nayyar said the picture in question shows police personnel verifying the credentials of a polling agent and asserted that law enforcement officers are not checking voters' identification documents.

According to Election Commission data, 13.34 per cent voters cast their votes in the Milkipur by poll till 9 am.

Though there are 10 candidates in the fray, the main contest is between SP's Ajit Prasad and the BJP's Chandrabhanu Paswan.

The bypoll was necessitated as SP's Awadhesh Prasad vacated the Milkipur seat after winning the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Even as the SP is looking to retain the seat, the BJP sees the election as an opportunity to avenge its loss in Faizabad. In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Milkipur was the only assembly seat the BJP lost in Ayodhya district.